I have NEVER claimed that I am a Twitter expert. I don’t think there is such a thing. I do know that I have a great many followers and that I get very good traction from my Twitter account. I am comfortable with sharing what’s worked for me. With that in mind, here are 10 quick tips for photographers who want to use Twitter – with one simple caveat – remember these have all worked for me. I am not saying they will work for you, but you might want to try them.

1. Use your real name or photo business name. It gives you more credibility and makes you less likely to be labeled a troll, coward, etc. It’s also better for SEO.

2. Tweet daily. Tweet twice daily about 12 hours apart for good traction and tweet several times a day if you have something you think is valuable.

3. Be generous with your knowledge.

4. Re-tweet only the best content. Don’t mindlessly link to stuff – especially if you haven’t read it. Remember whether fair or not, your RT is at least a tacit endorsement of the person or content you are re-tweeting.

5. Be short and to the point. After all you have no more than 140 characters.

6. Don’t use more than one hashtag (look that up on Google if you don’t know what it is.) The search engines often confuse posts with multiple hashtags as spam.

7. Be careful even about who follows you. If half your audience is comprised of spambots, porn stars and sex sites, you’ll be branded along with them.

8. Don’t get cute with #hashtags. Posts like – “I really like Canon cameras. #Super #Bestbrandever #rockstarcamera may be considered by some readers to be silly, immature, passive aggressive and again often spam as far as the search engines are concerned.

9. If you’re on Twitter as a photographer keep your religion and your politics out of your Tweets. Get separate accounts and Tweet your brains out about either or both. But keep it off your photo Twitter feed.

10. Unless you are a certified jackass whisperer – utterly ignore the trolls. Block them. Forget about them. Pitty them. They are lower than whale crap in my opinion (think about how low that is) and not worth your time.

Twitter has changed my photography business and my life. I think it’s worth investing a few minutes a day to gain all the positive benefits of Twitter. If you want to follow me on Twitter you can find me right here – http://www.twitter.com/scottbourne

If you just want to follow the Photofocus Twitter feed and only receive Twitter updates when there is a new post on Photofocus with no commentary from me, you can follow Photofocus right here – http://www.twitter.com/photofocus